Samuel's Mission e-mail January 28, 2008

Everyone:

This has been a pretty interesting week. For one thing, it's been raining--actually RAINING!!!!--so that's different. Let's see... on Tuesday after e-mail we did some good tracting and visited the familia Vasquez. They're doing pretty well--we just picked up the forms for them to get married today.

On Wednesday we visited a referral named Kathleen, and she seems really good. She has that hunger to know more about God that is so needed. We also tracted a bit, visited Sandra, a less-active who called in as a ref a while ago, had Anne's second baptismal interview, and had Wilshire ward correlation.

On Thursday we had our normal planning, and then we worked on contacting referrals. I guess people must have been staying in more because of the rain, because we actually got a hold of several of them. In the evening we visited Karla & family. The only thing that's really holding them back from baptism is that we want Karla and Brandon to get baptized at the same time, and Brandon's had so much homework recently that it's been hard to teach him very much. But, we're working through it.

On Friday we had Zone Conference, and then in the afternoon we tracted a bit and visited Hermano Vasquez. On Saturday we had our normal Adams ward correlation, tracted, and visited Karla again.

On Sunday we had our normal meetings, we visited the Morales family, and in the evening Anne got baptized! The baptism went very well, but then at the end of it one of the Stake Presidency members who was there announced that he had just recieved word that President Hinckley had died. Apparently he died not long before we started the baptism. It was a bit of an odd note to end the baptism, but... we know the Plan, so it's not so bad.

At Zone Conference, President Blackburn shared something that Elder Holland had said to the mission presidents in the MTC, and I'm going to quote it all to you.

"Why is this [missionary work] so hard... I am convinced that missionary work is not easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. Salvation was never easy... why would we believe, why would we think that it would be easy for us when it was never, ever easy for Him? In turn, how could we possibly bear any moving, lasting testimony of the atonement if we've never known or felt anything of such an experience?
As missionaries we are proud to say we are disciples of Christ, and we are. But mark my word, that means you must be prepared to walk something of the path He walked, to feel something, a little of the pain He felt, to at least occasionally, sometime during your mission shed one of the tears of sorrow He shed... I believe that missionaries... to come to the truth, to come to salvation, to come to repentence, to come to know something of the price that has been paid will have to pay a token of that same price. It will only be a token... I don't believe missionary work has ever been easy... I believe it is supposed to require something of our soul.
If Jesus could plead in the night, falling on His face, bleeding from every pore and crying "Father... remove this cup from me", little wonder that salvation is not a whimsical or easy thing for a missionary. This is the living Son of the Living God saying, "Isn't there some other way?" They [missionaries] should remember they are not the first ones to ask that--Someone a lot greater... asked it a long time ago.
As missionaries can come to love and appreciate it, the atonement will carry them... when they struggle, when they are rejected, when they are spat upon and cast out... they are standing shoulder to shoulder with the best life this world has ever known... they have every reason to stand tall and be grateful that the Savior and Redeemer of the world knows all about their sorrows and afflictions and that for a moment or two in their lives they will understand what He went through for them. The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane. The only victory is the victory at the summit of Calvary. Welcome to the journey of the Disciples of Christ."

What's a little rain after all that?